Paul Boyton Continues his Search for an Opportunity

A cruiser was seen to the south following the coastline. Boyton slipped into the water and paddled out, taking a 100 pound torpedo in tow. The cruiser headed towards him and he laid the fly torpedo across her path, and then swam back to shore. However, the crew on board the cruiser saw the torpedo and turned a Gatling gun on it, exploding it before it touched the ship.

The cruiser turned and began heading closer to land. The sloop put out its sweeps and hugged the shoreline, arriving back at Chorrillos the next morning in safety. That day, a party of marines from the cruiser landed on the island near where the torpedo had been to hunt out those who had placed it. Boyton and his crew watched from the mainland as the Chilean boats and soldiers scouted the islands.

The Peruvians feared the enemy guns that could be turned quickly in any direction, but daily they sailed to an island. At the same time, the Huascar, one of Paul Boyton's assigned targets, steamed up and down the coast seemingly within range of the Peruvian batteries.

(Author's note: Boyton says that is "some two months" that they laid under the batteries at the top of El Morro making sorties every night. This would indicate that he was in Chorrillos from at least the middle of November through the beginning of January, or possibly the beginning of November through the end of December. George Kiefer, on the other hand, says that he was in Chorrillos for three weeks.)

Resources:
Boyton, Paul. 1892. The story of Paul Boyton: voyages on all the great rivers of the world, paddling over twenty-five thousand miles in a rubber dress. Milwaukee: Riverside. 358 pp.